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[Phys-L] Physics Solutions Manual



We have just discovered a very unpleasant occurrence. Someone has made
photocopies of the solutions manual to Serway, Physics for Scientists and
Engineers, and is selling them (and also a few copies of the manual itself)
on EBay. Amazon.com also provides a link to a copy, but it appears
unavailable at the moment. I don't know if it's an instructor or a student
who is doing this, but it certainly seems, at the very least, like a
copyright infringement. The publisher claims that it does not sell the
solutions manual - it's only provided to instructors.

For me, this is an absolute disaster. I use homework as a major part of the
way I present my physics course. I spend the first 20 to 25 minutes of each
class going over homework that the students didn't understand. If a student
asks a question I work directly with that student, coaxing him/her through
the solution. I rarely just go to the board and simply present the solution
- it's an interactive process that assumes that the actual solution is not
available - the student and I "discover" an approach that solves the
problem. The other students are free to contribute comments, but the main
interaction is between me and the student who brought up the problem.

If the solutions manual is available, then the part of the class devoted to
homework becomes a defense of the approach taken by the person who wrote the
solutions manual. A typical question from the student now becomes "why did
they do this way?". The students miss out on the best part of introductory
physics which to me is the development of the physical intuition needed to
start a problem from scratch and invent a path to a solution. The fun part
of reviewing a homework problem in class is to uncover all the different
paths that the students invented to arrive at the same solution.

Has anyone else encountered this mass sale of solutions? Do you see it as an
impediment to your teaching of your physics courses?

Bob at PC
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